


family portrait

by acrobats



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Batman and the Signal (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily, Batfamily Feels, Family Feels, Family Shenanigans, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-13 21:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrobats/pseuds/acrobats
Summary: Collection of prompts from tumblr centered around the batfamily.





	1. Bruce + the kids

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be posting the rest of the prompts I have already written over the next few days so as not to post a bunch of chapters all at once. If you'd like to send a prompt or a request, you can do it here or on my [tumblr](https://acrobatgrayson.tumblr.com).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and the kids with the prompt: "I, too, love panicking at the neon disco."

The manor’s ballroom had not seen much use in recent years. The amount of galas and fundraisers and functions and what have yous that Bruce Wayne threw on a yearly basis was not negligible, but rarely did they take place in his own home. Intellectually, Bruce knew that the chances of someone wandering off and finding the entrance to the Batcave were low, but no risk was always better than a little risk.

Besides, his home was not for public consumption. Once upon a time, it had been almost like a haunted house to him, but his children had remedied that, filling it with life and laughter and yes, the unmistakable sound of fighting and priceless china shattering. He wouldn’t trade it for the world. Even if most of them didn’t live in the manor anymore, even if at times one or more of them refused to step foot inside for months on end, it belonged to all of them. Gotham’s high society had no place there.

Initially, Bruce had fought to keep the house untouched by time, more mausoleum than home, but all of that had gone out of the window the moment Dick Grayson had come into his life. First it was just Dick’s room, transformed from a neutral guest room to something as vibrant and full of personality as Dick himself, then a framed picture of Dick and Bruce in the study, then the little Batman magnet Dick bought and stuck on the fridge.

And it didn’t stop. More change came along with Jason, with Tim, with Damian and Cass and Duke. Even Stephanie and Barbara had left their mark, despite never having lived in the manor. Pictures in the hallways, books moved around in the library and new ones added to the collection, a drawing room slowly turned into a home cinema, pets and all the equipment that came with them, socks left in the most incredible places.

Bruce was wary of change, but that was one development he could live with.

It was on a late evening when Bruce – after a particularly rough night of patrol and an early morning WE meeting – had just woken up and stumbled into the kitchen for a cup of coffee that he heard it. Faintly, from across the manor, a sound he couldn’t quite identify but that immediately put him on alert. In his half-asleep state, he was at once convinced that it was intruders. None of the kids were home today besides Duke and Damian, and at this hour the two of them could usually be found in the cave, sparring. Then the mysterious noise couldn’t have come from them. Bruce changed course and took off towards the source of the sound in a sprint.

As he drew closer, he realized that it was music, loud, pumping music, but his mind hadn’t quite registered the implications of that by the time he threw open the ballroom door and barreled inside. The sight that greeted him was incomprehensible. He stood at the doorway, panting, all of his kids  _plus_ Barbara and Stephanie staring at him in varying degrees of concerned amusement.

Fighting to smooth out his expression, Bruce ground out, “Why does the ballroom look like a neon disco?”

It was truly a sight to behold. A bright pink disco ball had been attached to the ceiling. The long, rectangular table that usually adorned the unused dining room had been dragged to one corner of the ballroom, every inch covered in plates and glasses, a pair of glowing lava lamps on each side, Tim’s laptop – the source of the music – balancing precariously in one end. Bruce idly noted that the song now playing was  _Fly, Robin Fly._

Dick was wearing his old, affectionately dubbed  _discowing_ suit. The rest were clad in bell bottoms and spandex jumpsuits and patterned or nylon shirts, paired with platform boots and mismatched jewelry. Even Damian was wearing something that could vaguely pass as a disco outfit. The various styles at play clashed enough to give someone whiplash and the large room with its polished marble floor, high ceiling and tall glass windows made for a rather strange discotheque.

“Oh my god, you should have seen your face,” Jason said, delighted. “Looked like you were having an aneurysm.”

Dick elbowed him in the ribs.

“I was not –”

“It’s alright, Bruce,” Tim cut him off with a snicker. “I, too, love panicking at the neon disco.”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I was not panicking.”

“You burst in here like caveman spongebob,” Duke informed him, matter-of-fact.

Bruce really hated it when his kids ganged up on him. “I don’t know what that means.”

Cue another round of snickers. God, Bruce was not awake enough for this. He was starting to think the imaginary intruders might have been easier to deal with.

“Ballroom,” he repeated flatly. “Disco. Why.”

Barbara spoke up, taking pity on him, “Cass wanted to know what the disco was like. _Some people_ decided this meant we ought to throw a party.”

“And we were so right,” Stephanie declared, bumping her fist with Dick’s.

The explanation somehow did not make any of this easier to take in. He felt foolish and wrong-footed after the way he’d reacted, mind instantly going into fight mode. He was used to his kids causing a ruckus around the manor, but he was even more accustomed to danger awaiting in every turn, and coupled with his disorientation, it had been easy for instinct to take over.

“You could have mentioned it beforehand,” Bruce grumbled.

Damian snorted. “We informed you of our plans twice this week, father.”

Bruce squinted. That didn’t seem right. Cassandra had mentioned something about dancing, but  _disco_ was not the first thing that had come to his mind, and now that he thought about it Damian might have talked about a possible family gathering later in the week, but –

“I’ve told you guys,” Dick said, exasperated. “You’ve got to tell him once, as soon as you come up with a plan, and then again at most two days before it goes down. He’s old, he forgets things.”

“He probably was around when disco became popular,” Jason said.

“I was not,” Bruce said with great dignity.

Disco was the child of the late sixties and seventies. He was born in 1982. There was a respectable gap there. All of them looked at him with great skepticism. Stephanie disguised a giggle as a cough. Bruce was surrounded by family, and yet he stood among traitors.

“Join the party, Bruce,” Dick urged him with laughter in his voice. Bruce knew something was coming. “…You’re never too old to boogie.”

Bruce turned the full force of his glare on him. Betrayed. Utterly betrayed.

“Oh my god,” Barbara wheezed, throwing her head back with a laugh. “Dick, please never say ‘boogie’ again in your life.”

Bruce’s lips twitched. As perplexed as he had been to wake up to this, he had to admit that it was nice. All the kids together, messing around and having fun. No screaming matches, no brawls. The most dangerous thing in the room was a glitter marker that Stephanie was wielding, Tim and Damian already sporting smears of glitter along their face.

“I’ll stay for a bit,” he said, stepping farther into the room. Then, in a deadpan, “If you’re sure you can tolerate having an old man in your midst, that is.”


	2. Duke + Jason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Duke and Jason for the prompt "Golf is just as much fun as shooting a gun, you're just mean."

“I’m just saying,” Jason  _just said_ for the umpteenth time. “Golf is a dad sport, and also an old person sport, and therefore I hate it.”

Duke snorted and shook his head as he swung his club. “Does that have anything to do with the fact that those are both things that Bruce is?”

His attention was less on where the ball went and more on the man they were here to keep an eye on – a lanky bald man in a polo shirt, face red and flushed, whether from exertion or from the sun. He looked harmless, and he was a disastrously bad golf player, but if their intel was correct he was about to close a deal that would bring a serious amount of military grade weapons to Gotham. Appearances could be deceiving like that.

“Frankly, how dare you,” Jason said with an affronted gasp. Then, marginally more serious, as he send his own ball flying, “I can think about things that aren’t Bruce, you know.”

“I know,” Duke confirmed. “Such as how much golf sucks.”

Jason flipped him off while Duke laughed. Duke suspected Jason’s hatred of golf was also a little bit because of him losing – not by a lot, but he tended to overshoot. Duke kind of wanted to tease him about it, but he wasn’t entirely sure they were  _there_ yet in their budding brotherly relationship. Honestly, missions like this were a rarity – sometimes weeks could go by when he wouldn’t see most of Bruce’s kids at all.

“It’s just not undercover mission material,” Jason complained. Duke also suspected that he wasn’t as bothered as he was making it seem and just enjoyed being dramatic. “Why couldn’t we infiltrate an evil organisation and then have to shoot our way out when our cover was inevitably blown? You know, like cool people?”

And okay, detached from reality that made for some pretty badass imagery, but it wasn’t like the lives of vigilantes were so uneventful that they had to go wishing for trouble where there was none. Besides, this wasn’t half bad, either.

“Golf is just as much fun as shooting a gun,” Duke said with a grin. “You’re just mean.”

Jason shrugged. “True.”

Duke landed the ball in the whole with one smooth swing and celebrated with a loud whoop, pumping his fist in the air and jumping a little. Jason heaved a theatrical sigh.

“I’m glad  _someone_ is having fun,” he muttered darkly, but he nudged Duke with his shoulder to let him know he meant it.

They went on playing until they saw a woman approach their target, early fifties and decidedly high society. Thanks to the bug they’d planted on him earlier they heard every word as the two hashed out the details of the deal. Duke discreetly snapped a photo of her and sent it to Tim to run through facial recognition.

“Delighted by your interest,” the man was saying. “The cargo will be here by tomorrow night.”

They got everything they needed except the location. That would be texted to the buyer an hour before the sale went down. But once Tim had ID’d her, it would be no struggle to access her phone – they’d know the place as soon as she did. Their work here was done.

“See, your suffering is over,” Duke told Jason. “We can go.”

“It would look weird if we left halfway through the game,” Jason protested, giving him a Look. “Besides, don’t you wanna win this thing? Might as well.”

Duke couldn’t help needling him. “Don’t tell me you’re actually having a good time.”

Jason gave a non-committal shrug. “Definitely  _not_ as much fun as shooting a gun, but I’ll live. C'mon, Narrows, or do you think you can’t handle it?”

“Oh, you’re on,” Duke promised with a grin.


	3. batfam + dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A batfamily dinner for the prompt "Hey! Give me back my breadstick, you heathen!"

Sometimes, Dick wondered why they didn’t do family dinners more often. He wasn’t in the manor that often, these days, but this was nice. Being here with Bruce and all of his little brothers and sister, not because the world was ending, not because someone was dying, not because a rogue had broken out of Arkham. Just to share a meal, unified by their undying love for Alfred’s cooking.

And then Damian’s spoon went flying - it would have hit Tim right in the forehead, if Tim hadn’t ducked at the last moment, the spoon continuing on its path until it collided with the wall and clattered to the floor.

“Hey! Give me back my breadstick, you heathen!” Damian demanded.

Tim stared him right in the eye and took a bite out of the breadstick he’d snagged, chewing slowly, pointedly. Damian seethed.

Ah, well. Dick thought. That was why.

“Give back my red potatoes first,” Tim challenged. “Oh wait, you already ate all of them!”

“You weren’t eating them!”

“Boys,” Bruce tried, voice strained. “Please. Damian, don’t throw the cutlery at your brother. Tim, there’s more than enough breadsticks for everyone. Give it back.”

Damian crossed his arms with a disapproving tut and Tim shook his head. 

“You know what? Fine,” he said. He licked the breadstick and held it out to Damian, smirking. “Here you go.”

Damian leaned as far away from it as possible. “That’s disgusting.”

Bruce buried his face in his hands and sighed. Next to Dick, Cassandra laughed quietly. A rare sound, but they were hearing it more and more lately. 

Tim and Damian went on bickering, and it might have escalated to a brawl between them if Jason hadn’t seized the opportunity to snatch the last remaining piece of cordon bleu. The argument died instantly, both younger boys turning on him with murder in their eyes. The shit-eating grin on Jason’s face said he knew exactly what he was doing. 

Great. Now it was going to be a three way fight instead. At least, Dick lamented as the last illusion of peace shattered, Tim and Damian lunging at Jason with war cries, at least they were working together to achieve a common goal? Even if that goal was to inflict violence on their older brother, it had to count for something, right? 

“Do keep the horseplay to outdoors, young sirs,” Alfred instructed mildly as he came around with servings of dessert. 

“Permission to be excused, father,” Damian grunted with only a hint of sarcasm, his arms in a lock around Jason’s neck, trying to drag him out of his chair. Tim and Jason were still wrestling for the cordon bleu. 

Bruce nodded mutely. “Feel free. All three of you.”

They stumbled towards the back door to the gardens. Quiet fell over the table as only Bruce, Dick, Cass and Duke remained. Duke stared at their disappearing forms and then at the cake in front of him, frowning.

“Did they not just…not notice?” he wondered out loud.

“More for us,” Cass declared.

Dick grinned. Yeah, his little brothers were going to be livid when they figured it out, but that was half the fun, wasn’t it? Despite or maybe  _because_ of the chaos, family dinners were great.


	4. Dick + Jason + Duke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick, Jason and Duke for the prompt: "Oh sure, blame the murderer! Y'all suck!"

Neither of them was saying it, but Jason could tell they were thinking it. He rolled his eyes at the guarded look Dick and Duke exchanged. It was just his fucking luck that he had to be in the manor when something like this happened. Of course they would immediately pin it on him.

“Oh sure, blame the murderer!” Jason said with a scowl. “Y'all suck!”

“No one’s accusing you of anything, Jason,” Dick said levelly, though he glanced at the source of Jason’s troubles with great discomfort. “It’s just…”

“It’s just there’s a severed head in the fridge,” Jason finished for him, blunt and to the point. “And not only am I a killer, I have also specifically killed by decapitation before. There’s bloodstains on my jacket, I was unaccounted for during patrol yesterday and you know that I’ve been fighting with Bruce over the past few weeks. Not that much of a reach, is it? Excellent detective work. Bravo.”

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose in such a Bruce-like manner that it instantly made Jason want to punch him in the face. 

“Okay, but if I was killing people and didn’t want the rest of the family to know it,” Duke mused, frowning, looking strangely at ease with the situation as a whole and this hypothetical scenario, “I wouldn’t be bringing the severed heads of my victims to the manor and stuffing them in the fridge. I’d just dump them in the river. Sorry to ruin it, Jay, but I doubt this was you.”

”And I agree,” Dick jumped in with a grateful smile for Duke. “It’s just that…if it wasn’t one of us that brought it here, then that would mean somebody bypassed the manor’s security to leave a severed head in our fridge. And I’m as troubled about  _how_ they did it as  _why.”_

“Maybe it’s not a severed head at all,” Duke said wistfully. “Maybe it’s a very convincing replica for Damian’s art class.”

Jason snorted. “In that case, he really nailed the decomposing corpse scent. A+.”

“Well, he’s a gifted child.”

“Guys,” Dick scolded. “Come on. This is serious.”

“Oh, shut your face, I’m still pissed at you,” Jason said. “Duke’s my favorite sibling now.”

“Thank you,” Duke said, grinning.

Dick sighed. “I didn’t even -”

“Bull, you were thinking about it and you know it. So, do we think someone left us a rotting head as some sort of scare tactic? Because it’s not working very well, is it.”

Dick shook his head. “That’s what I don’t get. It feels so…random. It’s not even the head of anyone we know. So what message are they sending? I want to hope that whoever did this is an enemy of Bruce Wayne and not Batman, but…”

“Well, whoever they are, they’re good enough to get past the manor’s security,” Duke said with a frown. “That’s…not good. We should tell the others. Let them know they should be on alert. And maybe they know something.”

Dick nodded his agreement, face grim, and fished his phone out of his pocket to text the rest of the bats. 

“You know, it’s contradictory,” Duke mused. “They went to a great deal of trouble to leave this here. You don’t just do that if you don’t want people to notice. It’s a cry for attention. And yet no one’s claiming responsibility, there’s no note attached, no threats made, nothing.”

“Solid thinking,” Jason said. The kid was good. Fast learner. “If only the rogues in this goddamn city had half as much sense as you.”

“But why would one of the rogues target Bruce Wayne?” Duke argued. His frown deepened. “Unless they _know_ , in which case we’re in deeper shit than originally assumed.”

“Or maybe we’re in no shit at all,” Dick said with a deep sigh. “Tim texted back. It’s his.”

“The head is?” Jason asked incredulously. “Damn. Kid finally snapped and became a serial killer? Tell him congrats.”

“Hilarious,” Dick deadpanned. “But no. It’s part of a case he’s working on. Apparently the medical examiner is untrustworthy.” 

“An untrustworthy official in Gotham? I’m shocked. Tell Tim I’m shocked,” Duke requested.

“You assholes both have his number,” Dick said. “Tell him yourself. Now, if you’d like to focus, the point here is that we got worked up over nothing. Case closed. Any questions?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jason said, making a show of raising his hand like he was in class. “Why did he leave it in the manor’s fridge and not his own?”

“Really? That’s your question? Not  _why didn’t he use the special equipment we have in the cave specifically for the purpose of keeping things like this frozen_?” Dick asked back, exasperated. 

“Okay, Dick, clearly you have some strong feelings about this,” Duke said. “You wanna tell us why he didn’t use the cave equipment?”

“He,” Dick stressed, “was too tired to remember the entry code.”

“That’s legit,” Duke said with a shrug. “Bruce’s codes are crazy complicated. He could just put your birthday like a normal person.”

“If he was a normal person, he wouldn’t be Bruce  _or_  Batman.”

“Alright, nerds,” Jason declared. “We put the stinking head in cryo and then bully Tim into taking a day off, how’s that sound?”

“Sounds like we’ve got a POA,” Dick said. “Someone’s going to need to keep working on the head case, if we want to convince him.”

“Are we really going to call it the head case?” Jason asked.

“I’ve got the time,” Duke said.

“Thank you,  _Duke_ ,” Dick said pointedly, then sighed again. “Okay. Let’s remove the severed head from the fridge. Why not. These are our lives, everyone.”


	5. Bruce + Dick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Dick for the prompt: "Did you know you have enough bones in your body to make a skeleton?” (B: “…Please stop talking.”)

Watching Dick get hurt had not gotten any easier for Bruce in the year his ward had been Robin.

Dick was the child always running around with bruised knees and scraped palms, cartwheeling through the empty corridors and climbing the furniture. There was a cheerful fearlessness in Dick that scared Bruce half to death sometimes, evident in the way he shot his grappling hook and swung without a moment’s hesitation, his joyous laughter echoing through the night, in the way he launched himself at opponents twice his size with all the confidence of David taking on Goliath.

Now Dick was spinning in the chair in front of the batcomputer - and Bruce deeply regretted opting for a swivel chair - with his arm in a sling, a touch loopy on painkillers and spouting his unique and charming brand of nonsense.

It was only a buckle fracture, Bruce knew. A common childhood injury. It’d heal in a month at most. But somehow it felt a lot more loaded when Bruce knew Dick had acquired it thanks to Killer Moth throwing him at a wall. Killer Moth of all rogues. If Bruce couldn’t prevent that, then what on earth was he doing?

“Bruce,” Dick scolded, apparently sensing his grim mood. “You shouldn’t sulk. Alfred says so. C'mon, it doesn’t even hurt.”

“That’s good,” Bruce managed. “You should avoid putting strain on it.”

Dick heaved a dramatic sigh, then he perked up again. “Bruce,” he said with great urgency. “Did you know you have enough bones in your body to make a skeleton?”

Bruce didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “…Please stop talking,” he said instead.

Dick hummed in consideration. “No,” he decided. “You know, I’ve never broken a bone before.”

“I’d rather you hadn’t broken a bone today.”

“It’s kinda cool.”

“It is not cool,” Bruce said, more harshly than he’d intended.

“God, you’re such a…” Dick trailed off. “Worrywart,” he finished lamely.

“I’m not mad at you, Dick,” Bruce clarified after a few seconds, because Dick tended to misinterpret his ‘brooding silences’, as he called them. “I just don’t like you getting hurt.”

Dick huffed and crossed his arms. “I don’t like you getting hurt either,” he said accusingly.

“That’s fair,” Bruce admitted. He managed a smile for Dick and ruffled his hair. “What do you think we should do?”

Dick’s face scrunched up. “Try to get hurt less?”

“Alright.” Bruce nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

Dick nodded back seriously, holding out his uninjured hand with his pinky finger extended. “Okay. Promise.”

“Promise,” Bruce echoed, linking their pinkies together.


	6. Duke + Tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duke and Tim for the prompt: "Time to ruin everything."

Maybe, Duke thought, if he lay still and pretended not to exist, the knocking on his door would cease.

“Duke?” Tim’s disembodied voice called out. “C’mon, it’s just me. Let me in?”

Duke didn’t react.

“You know, the longer I stand out here talking to the door, the dumber I feel.”

Duke rolled to his back and stared blankly at the ceiling.

A sigh came from outside. “Alright, Duke, I get it. You don’t want to be disturbed. I’m leaving now, but you should know I’ve left a mug of hot cocoa outside your door. Take it or don’t.”

That caught Duke’s interest. He waited until he heard Tim’s footsteps disappear down the hall before he opened the door, snatching the mug and shutting it again quickly. He wouldn’t put it past Tim to leave the cocoa there as a lure. But he retrieved it without an incident - which, honestly, only raised his suspicions. 

Lure or not, though, the cocoa was  _good_. Alfred’s recipe, so that was to be expected. Try as they might, none of them except Damian could recreate it. Duke brought it to his desk and sat down, sipping from it carefully. It was still hot enough to burn his tongue, but that was the way cocoa ought to be drunk.

Just as he was starting to relax, Duke heard a noise from outside. He turned sharply to the window, and saw it before it happened - Tim lifting the partially open sash and crawling inside the room. Duke hurried to his feet and made to close it, but by that time Tim was already halfway through. So much for precognitive powers.

He sighed and stepped back to let Tim all the way in. 

“Seriously?” he asked. “You couldn’t have picked the lock?”

Tim brushed himself off and shrugged. “Of course I could, but it would be rude. Meanwhile, the window was open. Rookie mistake, in this household.”

“Yeah.” Duke turned away from him and flopped back onto the bed with a grimace. “I seem to be making plenty of those today, huh?”

“Duke, come on, you think the rest of us haven’t had any missions go wrong?” Tim asked, sitting down next to him. “You think Bruce hasn’t?  Hell, it’s not a real mission at this point if things don’t go off the rail.”

Duke shook his head. “I don’t know what happened. It’s like someone noticed I’ve been doing well a while and thought  _hey, time to ruin everything_! Like I really thought I was starting to get the hang of this, you know?”

“You are,” Tim assured him. “We’re all impressed, Bruce especially. I think Dami might be a little jealous. It’s just…not always a linear process, okay?”

“Damian’s jealous?” Duke asked with a snort, because it was much easier to address than a compliment. “Shit. Think I should be watching what I eat and drink for poisons?”

“I don’t know,” Tim said. “Did he poison the cocoa?”

Duke sat up, eyeing the mug forgotten on his desk. “He made it? For me? Why?”

“Because we’ve all been where you are, young Padawan -”

“Tim, aren’t we almost the same age?”

“-and we get it,” Tim finished pointedly, ignoring the interruption. “So grab your drink and come downstairs to listen to our embarrassing Robin stories. Deal?”

Duke grinned. “Deal.”


End file.
